Daughter of Australia by Harmony Verna

Author:Harmony Verna [Verna, Harmony]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2016-02-05T05:00:00+00:00

“Coolgardie!” the conductor shouted above the roar of the steam engine.

“That’s us.” James grabbed his pack from the seat.

Through the steam and smoke and wheels still burning from movement, they stepped off the train into a town of metal and looked up into a sky loud and crowded with roaring pistons and distant clangs. Rows of railroad tracks, lined with filthy ore cars, veered in clogged veins from the heart of the station. The smell of soot and oil and coal clung to the air. The clash of train cars coupling and grunting sent the eardrum retreating like a turtle’s head in a shell. Miners, blackened and rough, dotted the platform and weaved between the cars. A mix of accents—Italian, Polish, Ukrainian—blurred with Australian slang, guttural and nearly indiscernible.

Two dark-eyed men sat atop a donkey cart, their cheeks swollen with tobacco. They snickered at the new arrivals, pointed to their pressed clothes. Tom hiked his bag up his shoulder in case he needed to hit someone with it. “Feel like a fish outta water about to get gutted.”

James crossed a set of tracks and approached the men. “G’day,” he greeted curtly.

The man to the right spit on the ground, left a red phlegm splotch near James’s boot. “Waitin’ fer a buggy, sweetie?”

James ignored him. “You work at the mine?”

“Me an’ everybody else ’ere.”

“Heard there’s a new manager coming in. You know anything about him?”

The threat in their faces left as they took on the look of men who suddenly found themselves a fraction superior with knowledge. They stretched their necks to meet the sought counsel. “ ’Arrington. Yankee bloke. Loaded son of a bitch.”

“Got a station around here?”

The men laughed. The left one spit. The tobacco landed on the foot of the donkey, who shuffled and kicked it away.

“What’s so funny?” Tom asked.

“Yeah. He’s got a station. More like a country. Over three million acres, they say.”

The other man, not to be outdone, leaned in and added, “Bloke’s got a hundred thousand head of cattle on hold. Got horses, too. Bringin’ ’em in from Middle East somewheres.”

“Sawdi ’Rabia!” chimed the other man.

“They hiring?”

The man shrugged his shoulders, his help burned out.

“Know where we can catch a ride?” Tom asked.

“Ask at McKellar’s pub. Usually get a hitch there.”

“Thanks.” James tipped his hat and the men went back to stretching, chewing and spitting, watching the metal bang across metal.

“Think he was jokin’ about three million acres?” Tom asked.

“Guess we’ll find out.”

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